


Seventeen Steps

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-14
Updated: 2012-11-14
Packaged: 2017-11-18 15:30:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/562585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock has something he needs to say to John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seventeen Steps

Seventeen steps: he counted them as he ascended, because the crime scene had been gruesome and turning off the images of two splayed rib cages was imperative. In many ways, he blamed John for his recently developed inability to maintain complete emotional separation from what he saw. Now, when the bluish white of connective tissue gleamed against the red of muscle, when sunlight caught the translucent edges of cracked bone, a small part of him wondered how he would cope if it had been John laid open on the pavement. Allowing the thought to fully materialize turned his stomach, and he counted both the steps and the repeats in the wallpaper to push it back down. 

In the flat, John was sitting in the chair that could only ever be his. His hair was rumpled on one side. He had been worried, had pushed his hand through it repeatedly. Only one side, so he had been on the phone, the other hand occupied. Had called his sister.

"John," Sherlock said, hanging his coat and scarf by the door. Already he could feel it, the relief of John nearby, the pull that kept his head turned towards wherever John was, the undeniable brightness of him.

"Chinese?" John looked up from his laptop, smiling the crooked smile that Sherlock had come to think of as his.

A noncommittal "mmm" was the only response he made before collapsing into his armchair and toeing off his shoes. "John," he said again, and the way John turned to him, immediately, fully, awoke something primal and covetous within him. Now, it had to be now. 

"I misrepresented myself. I wish to correct that." Sherlock shifted forwards, elbows on knees, index fingers pressed together and tapping his lower lip. "I am not, in the sense I believe you meant when you asked, married to my work. At the time I was disinterested in anything other than work, and when I said I was married to it, that was an indication that I would remain so, but to my surprise I have not."

John's tongue flicked out, running over his lips. He put his laptop aside.

"It seems, John, that I have... this is, you must know, completely unexpected, but I have developed feelings for you."

"Sherlock..."

And then Sherlock was up, across the few feet that separated them, and kneeling in front of John. He fit the palms of his hands over John's knees, lightly, feeling the ridges of his patella through fabric and skin. "If you don't share my interest, John, just tell me. I'll make every effort to return to how things were." 

"I think..." his tongue again, a maddening pink crescent, "I think I might. I do. I think I do. I know I do." His voice, unsteady, halting.

"Good," Sherlock said, and it was that word that he chose over all the others because that's what John was to him, fundamentally: good.

Sherlock raised one hand, brought it to the side of John's face, cupping his cheek. His thumb swept over the arc of John's jaw. Ten hours of stubble made an unbearably soft noise against the pad of his thumb. "John," he said, his eyes on the curve of John's parted lips, "John." 

He brought his other hand up then, curving it around the back of John's neck, pulling him forwards gently, until they kissed and Sherlock had to close his eyes against the intimacy of John's fluttering breath, the rasp of John's lightly chapped lips dry against his own. John's hands threaded in his hair, his fingers cool against the heat of Sherlock's scalp.

John, alive, whole: a vital, compact bundle of ferocity threaded with an irrepressible urge to give. John: a shaking hand and limp and nightmares, whose broken edges were polished smooth against the sharpness of Sherlock. John: his.


End file.
